GOP: Obama court pick in 'jeopardy'

Law professor Goodwin Liu is young and progressive and could be on the fast track to the Supreme Court — but his nomination to a lower court has already hit a troubled patch after he neglected to send some of his most controversial past statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Tuesday, Liu sent an additional 117 items to the committee — including some of his most incendiary statements on issues such as affirmative action, school busing and constitutional welfare rights. Liu’s hearing has already been postponed once, and his failure to disclose controversial writings has Republicans saying Liu’s nomination is in “jeopardy.”

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The missing material “creates the impression that he knowingly attempted to hide his most controversial work from the committee,” Judiciary Committee Republicans wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on Tuesday.

Liu has been nominated to the 9th Circuit, a traditionally liberal bench, and conservatives from California to Washington are declaring war on his nomination.

Forty-two California district attorneys have written a scathing letter opposing his nomination. And conservative legal groups are cranking up their political machine in the kind of intense campaign against Liu usually reserved for Supreme Court nominations.

Why all the fuss over just one among hundreds of federal judicial nominees? Conservatives see Liu as the tip of the spear for the next generation of jurists — if he makes it to the court, they fear he could become a leading liberal jurist on property rights, the death penalty, affirmative action, guns and even interpretations of the health care law.

Liu apologized to the committee in a letter Tuesday and said that the omissions were inadvertent. Other judicial nominees — including now Chief Justice John Roberts — have had to file addenda to their Judiciary Committee questionnaires.

Still, conservatives have seized on a wide range of past Liu statements, accusing him of being sympathetic to reparations for slavery, and his public criticisms of other Supreme Court justices.

With another Supreme Court vacancy widely expected this summer, “what happens on professor Liu sets the tone for the Supreme Court and sets the tone for future nominees as well,” said a prominent Democratic lawyer who has advised the White House on judicial nominations.

A major judiciary fight could also distract from the White House's legislative agenda.